FOOTBALL IS COMING HOME

The upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa will make history: the first co-hosted WWC; first in the southern hemisphere; first with 32 teams; and first with guaranteed prize money for all players.

Historians Jean Williams and Brenda Elsey, and anthropologist Hillary Haldane led a wonderful session on the Football Scholars Forum focused on the politics, economics, culture, and history of the most popular event in women’s football.

Click on the link below to listen to the June 13, 2023, discussion.

Dr. Philipp Gollner invited Brenda Elsey (Hofstra University), Pablo M. Sierra (University of Rochester) and me on to The Assistant Professor of Football podcast to talk about what it’s like to “regularly teach, in American university classrooms, about football — its culture, its meaning, its history.”

As the show notes for the episode released on June 1, 2023, put it: “We talked about how that teaching is going, what would it be like to take a class with them, what do they assign, and how did they get into this subject in academia in the first place, and what good books are being written about the beautiful game beyond the well-known popular ones. And then we went on to opine more broadly, about the future of the game globally as well as here in the US, the next World Cup, why awful people run clubs, and what makes the beautiful game such a unique angle to understand the world.” 

Click on the link below to listen to the episode:

https://theassistantprofessoroffootball.buzzsprout.com/2052670/12964341-teaching-soccer-three-actual-professors-of-football-on-their-college-classes-and-soccer-literacy-in-the-u-s

Frank Risorto of The Gentleman Ultra Podcast interviewed me about my futbological life. We began with the story of my Global Soccer history course at Michigan State, its origins and evolution. Then I explained the origin of my lifelong support of Juventus (as a Roman no less!) and moving to the United States as a teenager. There was even some time to highlight my academic work in South Africa, and how oscillating between continents has given me unusual outsider/insider perspectives on life and football. My love of Subbuteo—the table soccer game—snuck into the conversation, too!

Enjoy the conversation and, if inclined, share the link.

The Gentleman Ultra podcast on Italian calcio asked me three World Cup questions: Which was your favorite World Cup moment? Favorite game? Favorite team?

Hint: my stories have something to do with the Azzurri and Roberto Baggio. So let me take you back to Foxboro 1994 and Spain 1982. Listen here.

Curva Mundial is a podcast about the fans of the “The Beautiful Game.” In each episode, Sal Bono sets out to ask why folks from all walks of life love the teams they do and how football represents who they are and where they are from.

In Episode 24, I got to tell my story: How my love for Juventus was not an arranged marriage; calcio culture; moving to the United States; South African soccer experiences; and becoming a fútbologist. Listen here.

Episode 511 of the 99% Invisible podcast reconstructs the history of the vuvuzela, its cultural power at the 2010 World Cup, and its gradual downsizing in the football soundscape.

It was an honor to be interviewed for the project alongside Freddie “Saddam” Maake, the “inventor” of the plastic horn, Mark Gleeson, the legendary football broadcaster, and Duane Jethro, the leading scholar on the topic.

The episode was produced by reporter James Parkinson (@JamesRParkinson).

Listen to the podcast here.

Vuvuzela

Poking around the Detroit Historical Society’s online archive for soccer material, I found intriguing footage of racially diverse young boys and girls playing a game in North Roseland Park. It’s from September 1985.

This Greens vs. Blues match between what appear to be 8-9 year olds is quintessential recreational soccer. They move in packs. The most daring among them dribble for dribbling sake. Technique is mostly an abstract concept. Goalkeeping resembles outfield play in Little League baseball. The ball ends up in the back of the net a few times, though the youngsters don’t seem to care about that as much as their parents do. The referee dad loves blowing his whistle. And just like today, coaches and parents shout “advice” and encouragement from the sidelines. It’s great to see gender integrated teams at play, though I did wonder why most players shunned shorts.